Veteran RoboHelp users saw a welcome improvement to the way Microsoft Word documents are imported into the new RoboHelp 8. If you're new to RoboHelp, of course you have nothing to compare the import process with. Let me just say that the import process reminds me of the Oldsmobile car commercials that ran some years ago… the series where "young" hipsters were always speeding along somewhere.
In the commercial, the passenger always says to the driver, "What kind of car is this?" The driver says, "It's an Oldsmobile!" "Oldsmobile?" asks the stunned passenger." To which the driver responds, "I know, it's not your father's Oldsmobile!"
The new RoboHelp is just like the new Oldsmobile's in those commercials. You might start RoboHelp expecting the same-old features and user experience. And then you start the "car," and the sound of the engine is enough to get the heart pumping.
Ever since Adobe revamped the interface, RoboHelp has had a sleeker, more modern look. And now, with RoboHelp 8, there's some real sizzle to that steak. Over the next few weeks, I'll cover some of the main features of the Word import process. This week, I'd like to begin with a bang. For the first time in RoboHelp history, you have a choice when you import your Word content. You can elect to import your Word documents as you have always done (via a standard import), or you can elect to import via a link.
When you import your document into RoboHelp via the traditional method (File > Import > Word Document), you are presented with the Content Settings dialog box shown below.
If you click Next, you'll see the Import dialog box shown below. At this point you would "map" your Word styles to RoboHelp styles and control how your Word document is split into new topics (via Pagination).
I'll be covering that process in the coming weeks. For now, suffice it to say that clicking the Finish button would import the Word content into your RoboHelp project. Since the content will be copied into RoboHelp, the original Word content is essentially valueless. If there are changes needed in the imported content, you would make those changes from within RoboHelp. If a colleague informs you that they have made significant changes to the Word document since you imported the content into RoboHelp, you would have to make those changes manually within the RoboHelp topics. Of course, at that point, any changes that you made would be lost. Ouch!
Which brings me to the alternative import process: linking the Word documents into the RoboHelp project instead of copying. Instead of choosing File > Import > Word document, you would choose File > Add > Word Document (or right-click the Project Files folder on the Project Manager pod and choose Link > Word document).
This time, instead of seeing either of the two dialog boxes above, the Word document appears as a single item in the Project Files folder on the Project Manager pod. At this point, you would right-click the Word document icon and choose Properties to display the Word Document Settings dialog box (shown below).
As I mentioned above, I'll be going over these specific dialog boxes over the coming weeks… there's a lot to consider which, while daunting, is a wonderful improvement over any of the frail import options back in your father's day.
Unlike the standard import method, the content you linked into RoboHelp will always look back to the source Word document for changes. If changes occur (maybe a team member deleted or edited some important information), you'll see an alert on the Word icon in RoboHelp. All you'd need to do is right-click the icon and choose Update to get those changes in RoboHelp. Nice!
I know I've left you with a bit of a cliffhanger by not covering the options in any of the dialog boxes above. Would it make you feel better to know that it was intentional (I do try to keep the articles in this newsletter short)? So as they used to say at the end of your father's favorite show, "See you next week, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel."
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